An interview with Karin Williams, Senior Director of Transport Engineering

Communication Service Providers continue to deploy new services and technologies at a rapid pace. The industry’s speed and growth depend upon transport networks capable of handling the demands of today’s data-intensive services. In this Q&A, we ask one of the industry’s foremost transport engineering experts, Karin Williams, what it takes to stay ahead of the curve – and how carriers can build and maintain a cost-effective and resilient transport network in today’s fast-changing telecom environment.

WHAT TRANSPORT ENGINEERING SERVICES DOES TEOCO OFFER?

SmartOps™ is TEOCO’s transport engineering suite of services, focused on helping carriers to decommission or deploy new transport networks as quickly and efficiently as possible. We can do everything from creating a network plan to turning it into a working service.

We know that many carriers are saddled with bad data and a lack of experienced staff due to company reorganizations, downsizing or retirements. Whether a carrier is installing or upgrading transport services, needs help integrating services into their network due to a merger or acquisition, or is decommissioning part of their transport network, we can help. We can put network in, we can take it out, we can upgrade, and we can optimize. We cover every phase of the process, from planning and implementation to analysis and optimization.

WHAT DO THESE DIFFERENT PHASES INCLUDE?

The planning phase might include negotiating contracts, planning the transport network and creating circuit designs in the carrier’s inventory systems.

The implementation phase is what we consider the ‘doing’ phase. It is about work orders, provisioning and coordinating the overall process to get services delivered. This is where speed and efficiency are the most critical and where best practices combined with automation help carriers get things done faster.

The analysis phase includes anything from analyzing project performance and KPIs, reviewing network performance, managing network capacity and costs, ensuring contractual compliance with Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and ensuring that engineering standards are met.

The optimization phase is typically project-based and focused on specific financial objectives or network initiatives. Optimization can be reviewed around network growth, M&A-based network integration activities, decommissioning activities, and even projects focused on finding financial savings in the network.

CAN YOU WORK WITH ANY TYPE OF TRANSPORT NETWORK, OR DO YOU FOCUS ON CERTAIN TECHNOLOGIES?

SmartOps services support any type of transport network – whether part of the fixed network or message-based voice and data networks, and across multiple technologies, like fiber, microwave, satellite, SIP and VoIP. Any of the technologies that the carriers are using, we can help.

Whether a carrier needs the full lifecycle of transport services, or any point in between, our team can provide help wherever it is needed. If they need network planners, we can provide expert planners. If they need support processing ASRs or LSRs, or if they want help updating their inventory, we can do that as well. So, at any point along that transport network value chain, we can step in and help, either on a project basis, or by providing more long-term managed services.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) is where we have a lot of experience, as that is a time when there are a lot of changes being made in the network in short periods of time. The carrier has multiple networks that must be integrated, and we provide the analysis needed to make decisions on things like the best strategy, costs, how to combine capacity, which sites to retain and which ones to abandon. Once these are defined, we can then help implement those decisions.

To sum it up, we enable carriers to deliver transport services faster, smarter and more reliably. We help them solve their biggest pain points related to transport network engineering.

WHY SHOULD CARRIERS CONSIDER TEOCO OVER OTHER VENDORS – OR EVEN THEIR OWN INTERNAL TEAMS?

TEOCO provides deep domain expertise; that is our real differentiator. We have extensive experience managing network integration, deployment, and decommissioning projects. We have been doing this for many years for some of the world’s largest carriers. We know what to look for, where the mistakes often happen, how to scorecard the project, and how to manage it. We come in with a team that can take this off our clients’ hands, so they don’t have to worry about it.

ARE THERE EXAMPLES OF TRANSPORT ENGINEERING PROJECTS YOU WOULD LIKE TO HIGHLIGHT?

Typical engagements might be a carrier that wants to expand its transport network in a certain part of the country, has recently gone through an acquisition, or has pieces of a project that it wants to offload because they don’t have adequate resources to tackle it. We provide a team possessing years of experience doing this type of work and can help from cradle to grave. We have both the technology and the people to get it done.

For example, we worked with a major carrier to decommission one of its New York switches, rehoming over 1,100 cell site locations. This required approximately 2,300 circuit orders. Due to numerous organizational changes, the client didn’t have the required expertise on staff to plan and execute this large of a project within their tight timelines.

TEOCO came in and managed all the engineering design work required to support the decommissioning of their New York switch. This included engineering reviews, planning, provisioning, inventory design updates, and project management services utilizing our SmartOps project management platform. In the end, we were able to complete the project by their deadline and decommission the switch with no downtime.

These are the types of projects that we do on a regular basis – and we are ready to help other carriers achieve similar results. For more information on TEOCO SmartOps, visit: https://aircomnext.com/smartops/